Ekta maata bless the queer world

We had another fantastic queer weekend. I was invited to a special screening of the phone app series – Romil and Juggal, produced by ALT Balaji that's owned by the czarina of Television, Ekta Kapoor. The team of Alt Balaji proactively contacted the LGBTIQ youth group Yaariyan to organise this special screening.

Romil and Jugal is a love-story between two men. The series is unashamed, unabashed, and unapologetic about sex and sexuality. It helps to not have the filter of censorship when you speak about stories of love. The series is typical to the core and that's the best thing about it. It's the the same with the cast.

Over the years, I have attended many, many preview screenings of films and met several actors. Most of them assume the stature of Amitabh Bachchan after just one film, even if the role was a blink-and-miss. The truth of the industry is that most screenings before the release of the film and during the first week, are filled with air kisses and conversations about how great the film is. As the conspiracy of silence goes, everyone follows the same thread of conversation and feels awkward to break the tempo with any view that is contrary.

This Alt Balaji team (yes, didding didding didding effect wala Balaji Telefilms ka new app based content) is different. They were real. Manraj Singh, Rajeev Siddhartha, and Nupur Asthana walked in with no fanfare music or dramatic expressions or pan caked white faces that looks like bleaching powder sprinkled on a shulabh sauchalaya. Cutely and quietly, the three walked in and sat in a corner. After a while, they mingled and immersed in the crowd.

The arrangements didn't look like this was some kind of a CSR activity by a kind-hearted corporate with overflowing empathy. Nupur, who plays the Punjabi mom in the film and is also the director, owned the evening by introducing the series to the audience and posing with Manraj and Rajeev for every Facebook live request.

I can count on my fingers – the actors who have played major roles (in gay-themed movies) — who are down to earth. While the boys have a lot to achieve and any comparison with stalwarts will be over-shouting, it is also true that actors grow an attitude bigger than a Mumbai pothole when they become popular. Not everyone can be a Manoj Bajpayee or Raj Kumar Rao (Aligarh) or Kalki Koechlin and Sayaani (Margarita with a straw) – celebrities in their own right, supremely talented, yet grounded and affable.

Queer junta in aamchi Mumbai are really fortunate to have interacted with this group, which really gave a flying fig to log kyaa kahenge, and played their roles in reel and real alike – lovable and endearing.

If you want to say thank you to the team and Ekta maata, tar app download karaicha, aani poorna series baghaichi.

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